Inspiration, ideas and information to help women build public speaking content, confidence and credibility. Denise Graveline is a Washington, DC-based speaker coach who has coached nearly 200 TEDMED and TEDx speakers--including one of 2016's most popular TED talks. She also has prepared speakers for presentations, testimony, and keynotes. She offers 1:1 coaching and group workshops in public speaking, presentation and media interview skills to both men and women.

Friday, May 20, 2011

While their lives are worlds apart, Phyllis Rodriguez and Aicha el-Wafi have plenty in common: Both women are activists, Rodriguez working for social justics, el-Wafi on behalf of Muslim women. They are both mothers. And on September 11, 2001, Rodgriguez's son Greg died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, while el-Wafi's son, Zacarias Moussaoui, was convicted for the attacks and is serving a life sentence. So that makes one more thing they have in common, according to Rodgriguez. "Our suffering is equal. Yet I'm treated with sympathy; she is treated with hostility," she says of el-Wafi.

Brought together a little more than a year after the 9/11 attacks with other relatives of victims, the two women have appeared in speaking engagements throughout Europe and the U.S. since then to talk about reconciliation and forgiveness, using the relationship they have forged as the centerpiece of those talks. They presented jointly at TEDWomen last year,

This joint talk is a testament to restraint for speakers. Here's what you can learn from it:

Less is more: In this case, Rodriguez and el-Wafi's story and circumstances are powerful and compelling, without embellishment. Just standing together makes a statement, so they don't need to make their words or rhetoric grander, more heated or emphatic.

Speaking for yourself is the most powerful kind of speech: The women can get away without putting too fine a point on their story precisely because it's theirs. Another speaker might have to use more descriptive and pointed terms to build drama and make their story compelling--but because they are speaking for themselves. they have all the power they need.

Make the big event personal: The women are speaking about one of the most violent political attacks in history, but their words keep it close to home and heart. Rodriguez recalls seeing news reports of el-Wafi traveling to the U.S. when her son was indicted and thinking, "What a brave woman. Someday I want to meet that woman when I am stronger." Almost no one else involved in the 9/11 attacks could say those words, and that personal angle makes this a compelling talk.

Here's the video of their talk. What do you think of their words and their approach?

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